When Insanity Meets Reason
by Skittles Rainbow Pride
Summary: Invader Dar prided herself on being an intelligent Irken. But intelligence and curiosity have their costs. After being exiled to Earth by the Tallest for her latest accident, Dar has to create a new life for herself, all the while avoided the dreaded Zim.


A/N: I don't own Zim, or any related characters. The Almighty Skinniest Jhonen does. I do, however, own Dar, Noir, and Dar's Computer (who may end up getting name later, as Dar tries to fight off her impending lose of sanity). Please R&R.

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Flying through space for 6 months was not something Dar had planned on. As she flew, she spent most of her time playing games, reading up on advanced weapons technology, and eating snacks with her SIR unit. She supposed it was only fair of the Tallest to send her away, but it really had been an accident.

She'd been trying to improve the storage conditions in the snack pods; everyone knew that the snacks only lasted a month in the pods, and many got thrown away because they went bad. Dar had been inside the snack pod at the time, tweaking some settings on the stabilizer unit when the explosion happened. It hadn't been pretty; there were snacks floating in space for days afterwards.

When she was brought before the Control Brain, they'd threatened to send her to Foodcourtia, until it was pointed out (by Dar herself) all the thing she could improve while she was there. It was obvious Dar was smart, but her curiosity and knack of "improving" things had lead to problems in the past, and the Tallest didn't want her to have any more accidents. So, they had exiled her.

As she curled up in her ship, Dar idly flipped through Noir's specs, tweaking them here and there. Guidance systems were top notch, as always, as were Noir's reaction times and speeds. With a smile, she pulled her SIR unit close, and the pair watched the stars and planets as they passed by. That was something the other Irkens had teased her about. They claimed it was unnatural for an invader to be so close to their SIR unit, but to Dar it was normal. Noir went everywhere with her, and they did everything together. If she'd bothered to pull herself away from machines at some point in her life, she might've made a friend. Instead, she had Noir. That was fine with Dar, and how she liked it. Noir offered good opinions on her creations, helped her with all her tinkering, and knew just as much about the electronics the Irkens used as she did. Noir was, in Dar's opinion, the best friend she could ever have built herself.

"WARNING! PLANET AHEAD!"

Dar and Noir sat up, the Irken immediately heading for controls while the SIR unit began to check the navigational system. "A planet, huh? Must be the one the Tallest are sending us to." She sighed, then began running an analysis of the planet. "Ya know, Noir, I liked it better back during Operation Impending Doom One, before that fool Zim ruined everything. You and I had it good then, didn't we? We were all set to capture that planet without any problems. But after Zim destroyed so much, we had to come home and fix everything, and then the Tallest wanted to keep us around. I hate how they treated us like a pet. We aren't anyone's pet, are we?"

Noir shook her head, smiling at Dar. "Not a pet, nope. Dar, are the coordinates set for our landing point, or is our destination merely this planet?"

The purple eyed Irken smiled joyfully at her companion, then shrugged. "Dun know. The navigational system won't let me access the landing coordinates until we land. After that, I can get into the system again. I hate it when the Tallest's tech monkies lock me out of my systems." She pouted for a moment, tapping her finger to her lip. "Oh, I know! Computer!"

"Yes, Dar?" Computer replied, her voice sweet and kind, making Dar smile.

"Can you confirm our landing point? Is it a specified location?"

"Processing…." Computer slowly hummed while she ran through the data. "Confirmed. Landing point is a specified location on planet."

"And can you identify the planet, Computer?"

"Confirmed. Planet has been identified as Earth."

Dar's eyes widened with horror, and she stood in her seat, looking outside the ship as it began to descend into the atmosphere. "EARTH? No, they didn't…they wouldn't…Computer, is this the same planet Earth that Zim was exiled to?" She waited, holding her breath as Noir crawled over to her side.

Computer slowly ran through her data, then popped up a frowny face on the view screen. "Confirmed. This is the same planet Earth that Zim was exiled to. Shall I self-destruct?" she replied sadly.

The Irken shook her head, sniffling. "No…not yet. Maybe we can just blow him up…that'd work, wouldn't it?" She looked hopefully at Noir, who shook her head. Sighing, Dar leaned back into her command chair, holding her SIR unit close.

"Well, Blorch. Computer, active the cloak and land us safely. We'll proceed from there." Computer beeped her acknowledgement, cloaking the ship as they flew down through the clouds.

"Noir, observe the planet's native inhabitants as well as their culture. We'll create our disguises when we land, and proceed as though this were an invasion." Dar moved back to her control panel, activating her video cameras; they would gather data along with Noir, allowing her to filter through until she had all that she needed.

As Noir began absorbing data from all she saw, Dar sighed as the ship slowly landed in a quiet, darkened street. Computer chirped softly as the ship's engines shut off.

"Welcome to Earth."


End file.
